What will a Pat Shurmur offense look like with Broncos Weapons?

What might a Pat Shurmur offense look like with the Denver Broncos’ arsenal of weapons in 2020? It might be the best collection of talent he’s had.

Much has changed in Broncoland since Drew Lock took the reins of the Denver Broncos with five games remaining in 2019. The team, and especially the youth, seemed to form comradery as Lock showed promise.

Now the front office has doubled down in drafting multiple offensive weapons in Jerry Jeudy and KJ Hamler and signing running back Melvin Gordon. Hopes are a mile high and new offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur will call the plays.

Shurmur has all the tools one could want and a pedigree that says he can make things happen. But what can we expect out of Shurmur ‘s offense with the tools he’s given in Denver?

In Shurmur’s time as OC with the Rams (2009-2010), he leaned heavily leaned on Steven Jackson and never really established a top-notch QB/WR relationship. While his first season as coordinator in Philidelphia he again leaned on LeSean Mcoy, his offense also produced 1,332 yds and 9 touchdowns from DeSean Jackson along with over 4,000 combined passing yards and 32 touchdowns from Nick Foles and Michael Vick.

The following year Foles and Mark Sanchez combined for over 4,500 yards and 27 touchdowns (with 21 interceptions, yikes). He showed a mixed bag of running and passing while leaning on a top tier RB and making the most of his offensive weapons elsewhere.

Fast forward to his latest OC stint in Minnesota in 2017 where Shurmur’s offense became very much focused around top-notch rookie running back Dalvin Cook prior to his injury and then evolved to turn Case Keenum into a household name going deep into the playoffs, not to mention getting production out of Latavius Murray and Jerrick Mckinnon out of the backfield.

What I gather from those seasons as offensive coordinator is that Pat Shurmur gets the most he can out of his guys (primarily the guy under center) and prefers a dominant backfield to gain his results.

I think Melvin Gordon and Philip Lindsay provide him with a backfield that rivals the best he’s ever worked with while Drew Lock shows the tools to be the complete signal-caller that Shurmur never got to mold an offense around long term.

Add all the weapons in Sutton, Jeudy, Hamler, and Fant and suddenly I think Shurmur has more chess pieces that he can move than ever before. Thus, Denver has the talent to put up the best of any previous offensive stats that a Shurmur offense has produced.

That means big numbers for the Broncos key contributors and the playoff run all the Broncos faithful have been missing.